Italian Bolognese Sauce/Gravy

Badda Bing.  Badda Boom.

Sometimes you just want a big bowl of comforting pasta with meat sauce.  

When I was a kid growing up, I didn't know any better and I used to think Ragu or Prego out of the jar was pretty good.  I even used to like Chef Boyardee Spaghetti O's.  But now that I'm a grown up, it doesn't do anything for me except make me kind of wonder how I used to love them so....but then again, I used to think Campbell's canned soups were the shiz.  You can read about it here.

In the 90's, I worked at a place called Santo Pietro's.  It was known for being the local hangouts for celebrities who lived in the area and for their garlic knots.  I learned a lot about Italian food. I never knew there were different kind of sauces.  No really.  I just thought spaghetti sauce was spaghetti sauce.  While I like a good marinara or pomodoro sauce, and occasionally I might kill for a good putanesca sauce, I always come back to craving a nice big bowl of spaghetti with meat sauce.

Last year, I had dinner at my friend Kim's house and her tia brought this killer sauce.  As soon as I ate it, I wanted to rush home with a giant bowl of it, put on stretchy pants, climb into bed and devour it while watching TV.  I never got the recipe so I went on a quest to find the Holy Grail, uh, I mean make my own amazing meat sauce.  Her Tia Nani's had black olives in it, but the Indian guy I live with doesn't like them so I didn't add them.  Feel free if you want to.  

Have you ever heard anybody call it a gravy?  Well, that's because in Italy, bolognese sauce is called Sugo alla Bolognese.  Sugo means gravy.  So some Italian Americans will refer to meat sauce as gravy.  I like to think of it like a tomato gravy.

My mouth is watering.  So without further ado, here it is...my pasta gravy.

You'll need:

1/2 - 1 pound of lean ground pork

1/2 - 1 pound ground beef

olive oil

1 large onion

2 cups of chopped carrots

2 tbsp of chopped garlic

Worcester sauce

oregano

1  12 oz can of tomato paste

heavy whipping cream

Give your large onion a course chop.  You can do a fine chop or you can chop them larger.  Either way, your onions will soften up and melt into your sauce.  I use baby carrots, you can use regular if you want, and just chop them into bite sized pieces.  Add your chopped onions and chopped carrots into a heavier type of pot like a dutch oven.  Saute on medium with some olive oil with salt and pepper.  Why do I add carrots?  Carrots have a lot of natural sugar and flavor and when browned add a nice sweet flavor to your sauce.  Plus the sugars in the carrots helps to neutralize the tomato acid.  I think.  Maybe I just made that up in my head and eventually believed it?

After about 3-5 minutes, I add my package of ground beef and group pork. In this case, I used more pork then beef.  But honestly, it's just the packages I grabbed at the market.  The Korean market I get my meat from packages in convenient almost 1 pound sizes.  So the beef was half a pound and the pork was 3/4 of a pound.   Use as much or as little as you want.  You can chose to use all pork or all beef.

Add your ground beef and pork:

Since I'm working with meat, I like to add a tablespoon or so of Worcester sauce.

I add this much fresh, chopped garlic.  That's probably almost two tablespoons right there.  Use as little or as much as you want to.  Don't forget to add salt and pepper here, too.  I like to season the meat while it's cooking.

Excuse the steamy picture.  I added about a tablespoon of oregano.

Saute and cook your meat and be sure to use your spoon to crush up all the chunks.  I like my meat gravy to not have chunks but for all the meat to be crumbled up.

When the meat is all browned and you've obliterated all the large chunks, it's time to add your tomato paste.  I find it's easiest to use a can opener and open BOTH ends of the can and then push the bottom through like this:

Ta-dah!  Tomato paste without scraping the can.  Unless you enjoy doing that.  Then by all means, go for it! 

Take your spoon and saute the paste until it starts to stick to the bottom.  This helps with developing a rich flavor.  Tomato paste is genius because it is like concentrated flavor in a little can without hours of stewing.  Keep "browning" your tomato paste until it begins to stick to the bottom of the pan like this:

Pour in 3 cups of beef broth or beef stock.  Sometimes I use canned stock, but this time I happened to have homemade beef stock that I made.  Pour it in now.  Don't worry. All the stuck paste will come up during this part.  Take your spoon and scrape off all that flavor that's stuck to the bottom of your pot.

Stir up and cover with a lid.  Turn your heat down to low and let simmer for about 20 minutes.  You can simmer longer if you want, but no less than 20 minutes.  Now it's time to add some cream.  Yes, you read that right.  I find adding just a bit of cream helps take away even more of the tangy acid in the tomato sauce. 

I used about 2-3 tablespoons.  You don't need a lot.  A little goes a long way.

Simmer for just a few minutes longer.

Viola!  Tomato gravy.

Eat this with any kind of pasta you want.   I like spaghetti or linguine for this sauce.  Or I  like to stand in the kitchen and dip crusty pieces of bread in it and stuff my face.

Mangia!

(Hi Kimmerino!!)

This sauce freezes well, too.  Just pour into containers and freeze for later.